3rd Night

For the third night of Hanukkah we had our Havurah come over to our house. Our Havurah is group of other families with children of similar ages. The hope is to get our Havurah together several times a year. This was our first event and it was a hit. We lit the candles, had a gelt (chocolate coin) hunt (this is sort of like an Easter egg hunt except for you are searching for gelt instead of eggs), and colored pictures of dreidels and menorahs. We are hoping that our next Havurah event will be out to another families farm to see the baby farm animals after they are born in the spring.

2nd Night

The second night of Hanukkah was our extended family night. Papa, Grams (G.G.), Aunt Lisa, Uncle Mike, Cousins Bryan and Isaac, Uncle Elliott and Leasley, Uncle Henry, Nonni and Poppy were all there. Hanukkah is the festival of lights and the tradition is to make food that is fried with oil. Daddy both Mexican and Asian egg rolls and Nonni made Latkas (traditional potato pancakes). The kids got lots of really cool gifts from everyone. The biggest hit for Pennington was the football helmet from Uncle Henry. Piper really liked all of her gifts. She spent lots of time analyzing everything she got. Below are pictures of the kids on the second night of Hanukkah.

1st Night

The first night of Hanukkah was also Jesikah's company Holiday party. Before heading to the party we lit the candles at home and opened presents. This year the company party was at the Idaho Botanical Gardens - Winter Garden A Glow and we were encouraged to bring the whole family. They had a heated tent where dinner was served and then we were free to roam around the gardens. The kids loved the trains. Especially since Thomas and Percy were there. Below are some photos from the first night of Hanukkah.

Presents

We decided to go all out this year and get each of the kids 8 presents, one for each night of Hanukkah. Some of the gifts are big, some are small, some are toys, and some are necessities. We have numbered each of the gifts with foam numbers so we can talk about counting from 1 to 8. I was surprised to find out a few days ago that Nonni (my Mom and I still can't agree on how to spell her name) and Poppy got 8 presents for each of the kids as well. Boy are my children very spoiled and loved all at the same time. Stay tune for (hopefully nightly) updates on Hanukkah. Below is a picture of the mountain of gifts for Pennington and Piper.

Fish

I came home a few days ago to find a nice fish tank in Pennington's room. Was I consulted on this purchase for our children. . . . of course not. Pennington and Piper are now pet owners. We originally had 2 fish, got 2 more, they ended up taking a long nap, and now we are back down to the original 2 fish. On Thursday morning we discovered we are down to only one fish and that the one we have is missing a portion of his tail. We are still working on a name. Pennington vetoed the following: Buster, Bob, Gossie and Gertie. Hopefully we will have a name soon. For all I know by the end of the week we will have killed off all the fish. Below is a picture of the fish tank.

Johnny's Birthday Party

For Johnny's 30th we decided to have all of our friends over for dinner, drinks, and fun. Johnny and I used to have dinner parties all the time before we had kids. It is something we really miss doing. So I decided why not have a dinner party for Johnny's 30th. We provided all the food and asked people to bring a beverage to share.

We feel so blessed by how many people turned out for the party. The food was amazing and there was plenty of beverages to go around. We needed up breaking out Pictionary and playing it on the kids easel. It was a battle of the sexes and I am sad to report that some how the men won. I have no idea how except for the fact that the version we played involved rolling the die and the men kept rolling sixes and the women kept rolling twos. Basically the men are better at rolling die then the women.

After Pictionary a bunch of us headed downtown to go dancing. It was blast. It made us feel like we were 21 again. I have to say I think it is very healthy to turn back time every once and a while so you can remind yourself how great it is not to be 21 anymore. If we had to party like that every weekend in our thirties we would be in big trouble. Below are some pictures from the night.

Picture of some of the guys that came.

Picture of the winning drawing. Johnny knew the answer in about 2 seconds. It is Mickey Mouse of course.

Hand, Foot, & Mouth Diasese Part II

Surprise, surprise. As soon as Pennington starts to feel better Piper ends up getting Hand, Foot and Mouth. The only saving grace is that Piper doesn't have it in her mouth but rather on her bottom. Honestly Piper doesn't even know she has it which is 180 degrees difference from what we experienced with Pennington. Hopefully Piper will get better soon. It would be nice to be able to hang out with other kids and not infect them.